After attending a Lilith Fair concert this weekend, Pop Off contributor Maura Johnston offers six pieces of advice to concert promoter Live Nation for how to improve the fan experience at their outdoor amphitheaters. [Sound of the City]

Bucking expectations, Fox didn't announce who would be at the judges' table when American Idol resumes next year. At the Los Angeles Times' music blog, Randall Roberts says Idol might solve its judging problem if it hired a music critic as a judge and suggests ten writers for the job. [Pop & Hiss]

Justin Bieber's voice is changing. So says a New York magazine profile of the mop-topped Canadian popster. Also included: quotes, hyperventilation from a few of the 12,000 fans lined up for a performance at Rockefeller Plaza that can hold 1,000 people; the danger of singing on ibuprofen, which "thins out the capillaries;" tales of teenage girls tearing through police lines to rush the singer; "goog goog goog" voice exercises in between bites of a sandwich on the way to a concert; and this quote, from Bieber's manager Scooter Braun, as he recalled discovering the singer on YouTube: "Someday I will find a 12-year-old on the Internet, randomly, in the middle of the night after coming back from a long night of drinking, and I will stare at that little boy for two straight days until I find him." [New York]

In The New Yorker, Alex Ross reviews new recordings of Chopin, Thomas Larcher and Bach. [The New Yorker]

The EMP Pop Conference, the yearly gathering of academics, journalists and extremely enthusiastic music nerds organized by the Experience Music Project, will relocate from its Seattle home to Los Angeles for next year's conference, to be held from Feb 24 - 27. The theme for the upcoming conference will be "Cash Rules Everything Around Me: Music and Money." They're accepting proposals for papers now. Get 'em in by October 15. [via Pop & Hiss]

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